Thaw
by supervilliangirl
Summary: The cold, his lullaby, his constant reassurance, is no longer his. Just like everything else it has turned on him, up and left him to rot, to die in a fever.
1. Thermal

Title: Thaw

Fandom: Avengers

Character(s): Loki/Tony Stark

Genre(s): Angst/Romance

Summary: Prompt: Loki's scepter doesn't work, but when he's returned to Asgard, Tony is left feeling cold all the time, and Loki feels too warm.

Note(s): Was given this prompt on tumblr…and then this fic ran away from me and became very Loki centric. Not that I mind…Chapter 2 will be up as soon as I finish it, and will be more Tony-centric. I love me some Tony.  
May not be as Frostiron as I had originally hoped it would be-perhaps this should more properly be labeled as pre-slash.

-0-0-0-

Chapter 1  
Loki is used to the cold.

His whole life, the biting cold has been his constant companion. It has never tired of him, never criticizes or abandons. It was as ever-unchanging as the green of his eyes, the slick of his hair. When he was little if he could not go to sleep he would throw off his many animal-skin blankets, yards and yards of the thick material. He would welcome the chill that the night air took like an old friend. It was his lullaby, and he listened to it gladly.

As he grew older, though, it became more apparent that no one else felt it; no other Asgardian could hear the wind dance with the frost, the breeze whisper to the lake.

He had mentioned it to his brother, once, when they were both very young. Thor had looked at him oddly and then shrugged, the space between his eyebrows furrowing slightly. "I do not know what you speak of, Loki, it is quite warm today," he had said, and then placed his hand on his younger brother's shoulder.

That was the first time that he had noticed that Thor's touch seemed to burn through his thin tunic, the heat almost unbearably warming his skin where his brother's pudgy fingers curled around the bird-thin bone covered in skin.

The little prince had then asked Frigga and Odin, apart and together. Frigga's eyes had slid to the side slightly, which he would learn as the years grew that it was her tell, for when she lied. She had suggested that he perhaps had a cold, and should rest for a bit, have the servants bring him some warm milk. Odin, now, he didn't have all that many tells. He was a very good liar, so good that when Loki was young he could never discern the truth from him, even. Odin had looked him straight in the eye and said that there was nothing wrong with him, and that he was perfectly normal.  
Oh yes, Odin had been an absolutely stunning liar.  
-0-0-0-

The first time that he and his brother are told of the Frost Giants they must have been very young, although Loki remembers every detail of it.

Odin is sitting at a table, showcasing various weapons for them. Thor is thrilled, with all the eagerness of a rowdy young boy. The blond cap of his hair gleams like the sun, his voice loud and rambunctious. He mispronounces some of his words, replacing sounds that should be present with other ones.

Loki doesn't show it outwardly, of course, but he is equally enthused. His small hands are clasped together in his lap, and his eyes shine brightly within the paleness of his face.

"Father, father, who did you fight this with?" Thor asks, slurring some of his sentence together. The title for Odin comes out slightly distorted by his childish lisp, but that will go away with age. He is pointing to a sword that he has never seen Odin pick up before, and it looks to be rusted and age-weary. There is a dark red resting on the wicked-looking blade, and both of the boys are too young to recognize if for what it is.

Jotun blood.

Odin hazards a glance over at it, his one uncovered eye taking in the sight of his eldest pointing at the long-unused, but not forgotten weapon. Then, when he seems to register what it is exactly, his gaze lingers, and he turns to fully face the direction of it.

"What is it, father?" Loki asks, picking up on his hesitance to answer the question. He had always been good at noticing things that others would probably have him rather not.

"It is…that is…from a long time ago, my boy," Asgard's king says slowly, as if testing the words out, seeing how they taste and form on his tongue. He seems unsure for a second, which is something that he rarely is.

"That sounds _boring_!" Thor proclaims, almost knocking something over in his exuberance. The sword no longer holds his attention, now that he knows that it has something to do with the past. In his experiences, stories like those take the longest to tell, and he abhors having to sit still for anything.

That is a trait that his brother does not share with him though, for he would have gladly sat and waited as he was told the history of the universe, if someone had known it in its entirety. His patience was one born out of the need to know, a yearning to understand. He could easily waste hours away in the library even at his current age, devouring piles of books in a sitting.

The All-Father heaves a sigh, most likely because he is aware of Loki's persistence.

"Have you boys ever heard of frost giants? No, I suppose you wouldn't have, would you?" There was something like regret and frustration in his voice. Loki was too at awe with the idea of something new, of learning of a previously unknown thing, to catch the change in the regal voice.

"What are they?" Loki asks, leaning forward slightly in his seat. His head only sits just above the table, even with the pillow underneath him. The chair is far too big, and Loki is far too small for it. The young royal is tiny even by Asgardian measures, not even close to the size of his only slightly elder sibling.

"They are...warriors, Loki, by nature. They are many times larger than Æsir. Their eyes are the bright red of blood and their hides are varying shades of blue..."

He listens with rapt attention as the All-father paints the picture for him, spelling out the history of the fierce and brutal race. The king speaks of many battles won by Æsir, of the aborted attempts of the Jotun to enslave Man.

A large imagination has always been something in Loki's possession, and right now it is wild and roaming. The Jotun are half formed things of shadow with midnight skin and sharp white teeth, with gaping maws and outreached hands. Slits are their eyes, and they glow bright red. A red so crimson, like a rose blossoming in the snow-unholy and preternatural. As red as fear.

His eyes drift to the awesome steel, hardened by the blood of giants, and he is grateful to his father. He is grateful that these beasts can never touch him.

-0-0-0-

In the darkness of his cell he sighs at his thoughts, his memories, so young and bright and innocent. Of course, he had been clueless of his own origins, so it had never occurred to him...  
Now he sees all those discussions with Odin as a mockery. Every time that his son and "son" had asked for more stories of Jotunhiem, he had seemed more and more sure of himself, as if he had started to get used to lying and denying.

Loki knew that was very possible, be had seen multiple people, numerous times, sink into a sense of ease, a way to soothe their own guilt. When one is the lord or liars and mischief, he learns how to recognize his subjects.

He supposes that it was a willful deception on his part-he wanted to believe in the lie, so he did.

His mind turns to other things, as shudder runs through him. Goosebumps form on his skin, and his fingers clench reflexively. It is cold, but not in the way that he is used to. The familiar bite of the bone-numbing temperature has always been more of an inwardly-turned sensation, and he has never psychically reacted to it with more than comfort.

But now, now it is too much, and it has a different source. He wants to curl in on himself, to try and create some warmth, shying away from the frigidness that the dank prison holds. It's dark and miserable, but he had never imagined that it would bother him in such a way.

His fingers, shivering and bloody and partly mangled, come to rest across his forehead, swipe his hair away from his eyes.

There, perhaps, is the most startling discovery. Sweat. Black strands are drenched in it, and sheen of the moisture clings to his brow. He's absolutely covered in it, and it soaks through his torn clothing.

A gasp, unbidden, wrenches from some deep, guttural part of him. Any other creature would call it fear. He decides not to give it a name.

The cold, his lullaby, his constant reassurance, is no longer his. Just like everything else it has turned on him, up and left him to rot, to die in a fever.

He is far, far too hot, and it is far, far too cold where he lays like a wretched thing, pressed against the uneven stones and hay.

Loki of Asgard (Jontunhiem?) dreams of fever-things, although his eyes never shut. They roll and they roll within his head, writhing like maggots. He dreams of a life that is not his, of a blue glow that comes from a fake, mechanical heart. His dreams are of the desert and heat and thirst and dying


	2. Frozen

Chapter 2

Author's Note(s): So, I decided that this will be the last chapter...but, it will be the beginning of a series! The tone to this is very...just not what I want for a long run story, so this will kind of be like a prologue to a longer Frostiron story. I haven't even started on it, so I don't know when I will post it, but it will be coming up. It might be a drabble series, it might be much longer. At this point I don't really know!

-0-0-0-  
Tony Stark has changed.

This, of course, would be apparent to anyone with eyes. Instead of being known as the Merchant of Death and the best of the best n weapons manufacturing, he is now the biggest name in clean energy. He also flies around in a big metal suit, but to some people that isn't really a surprise. They write it off as a byproduct of his arrogance, yet another way that he can be full of himself.

But, what is perhaps the most important change that took place within him, was one that the public was unaware of.

The reoccurring nightmares, the fear of water, the avoidance of heat. Of course, these are not symptoms that he shares with others, those that were bred from three months of captivity. They make him feel too weak, and the last thing that Tony Stark is is weak. He never has been, and he never will be.

The frequency in which it occurs, the blind panic and the night terrors and the ohdeargodimbackthereagain-those things don't happen so often anymore. It's a reminder, every now and then, a nudge in the back of his head that sometimes becomes a pound.

No one know about it, not really. Pepper has some sort of clue, an inclination, really, but he's sure that she's never imagined the magnitude. Someone who's never been through that sort of hell ever does.

Before Afghanistan, he'd had self destructive tendencies, birthed and coupled with years of self-loathing. Drinking and sleeping around and being reckless. It's a habit of his since his teenage years-why the fuck should he care about himself if no one else does?

But he digresses, he isn't one to get up on his soap box. He likes to make people watch him, likes to confuse them, likes not giving a shit.

And perhaps, he has changed since then, perhaps he has gotten marginally kinder.  
It's not likely, though.

-0-0-0-  
The cold is unbearable.

For hours he hasn't been able to make it stop; the shivers, the chattering of his teeth. It's fucking ridiculous at this point, and nothing has been able to chase it away.

The slow burn of alcohol that usually is his cure all does not-absolutely nothing. It's a warmth that doesn't linger, it just fades as quickly as it went down.

He's changed the temperature of the tower three times, but it makes no difference. The number of blankets and comforters that he wraps around himself don't help either.

To be honest, he doesn't even know how he's alive at the moment. His skin is ice cold to the touch-he's sure that he's currently far below the average human body temperature.

The first thought he has is to wonder if the arc reactor is messing up, so he drags himself down to his lab to take some readings.

Nothing. The results are normal, it's working perfectly fine. As it should be, of course.  
Not knowing things frustrates him, makes him twitchy.

For the better part of an hour he's taking all sorts of tests on himself-blood, skin cells, his vitals...

The only one that comes up as a point of interest is the energy levels that his machines are picking up. They're odd, and somewhat familiar. He knows that he's seen them before, the wave, the fluctuation, the crazy, seemingly impossible spikes.

Realization hits-of where exactly he's seen this before-as all of a sudden a rush of things-emotions, memories, pain-flood him. It knocks the breath out of his lungs in one fell swoop, and Tony has to grab onto a table to keep from falling on his ass.

The sight before him is not of his lab or of any place that he knows of. In front of him is some sort of cell-that much is obvious. There is barely any light filtering in, and it seems to be flickering and licking at what looks like a stone floor. It must be from a fire or something of the like then.

He hears labored breathing, but he doesn't think that it's his own. He can't look around because his head won't move. It's an odd sensation, as if he has no control over his own body. Stifling waves of heat wash over him, raising goose bumps with the suddenness of the temperature change.

Mind racing, he tries to sort through the quick succession of events. In his mind's eyes he sees images rushing past, in an odd sort of semi-awareness. It's fascinating and odd and strange and nothing like he's ever experienced. He can see the lab again, but he can also see the cell, and the memories that aren't his, can feel things that he's certain aren't coming from himself-

"_Having fun, are you?" _A slick voice rasps from...his mouth? The voice is one that he knows, but it sounds different from what it should. It's weak and there is a slight wheeze, an edge to it that makes him uncomfortable. The flow of consciousness that isn't his is clamped down viciously upon, and the dual images stop.

"_Imbecile," _it continues, and he doesn't need to see the owner to picture the imagining sneer. _"As much as I enjoy your confusion, it gets tiresome." _

"What the fuck are you doing in my head?" Tony responds, swinging his head around to survey the room. Nothing seems out of place, and there certainly isn't a certain God of Mischief skulking around...

"_I believe that this is the fault of your arc reactor, Stark."_

"There's nothing wrong with it though-"

Loki's voice cuts him off "_It stopped my scepter from working on you."_

Tony blinks in slight confusion. "Yes, I'm aware of that." He's glad that no one else is there. They might start to wonder why he's talking to what seems to be himself. Maybe he even is, at this point. He's had more than one person call him insane before.

"_Well, it seemed to have some...unprecedented...side effects."_

A sharp bark of laughter bubbled out of the billionaire's throat. "So your glow stick of destiny doesn't work, and now we're somehow connected?"

"_It would appear so."_ If his voice was any drier they'd be in the fucking desert.

"Well, as much as I love heart to hearts-"

Here, Loki snorted.

"I would really you rather not have you running around inside here. Is there any way to reverse this?"

The god was silent for a moment, silently thinking over the question.

"_Yes, there is a way to reverse a rebound of magic...but, as you saw, I am in no condition or place to do such a thing. I would need time to prepare the spell and the components..."_

"And on the same planet?" The other man added.

"_Yes, that too." _A brief exhalation of air that Tony could have mistaken for a laugh crossed their mental mind...meld...bridge...thing.

"So, what you're saying is that you need a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card to fix this." Ugh, he needed some alcohol. This topped one of the most ridiculous things to have happened to him recently. Maybe he needed to be pleasantly tipsy first. His outlook on the shithole of his life was better when he was half-drunk.

"_...Yes. Although I doubt that I will be freed anytime during your lifetime."_

"Great. I have to deal with you playing around in my head for the rest of my life." There were reasons that he didn't live with people. He couldn't stand them, and they usually couldn't stand him. Of course, they also happened to be annoying as fuck, but he was pretty sure that the feeling was mutual.

"_It's not like I find the situation oh so enjoyable either, son of Howard." _True to his word, the disembodied voice of Loki hardly sounds thrilled. Well, at least he didn't lie about everything, Tony thinks somewhat condescendingly.

"Okay, if we're going to co-inhabit for an obscenely long time, you're going to have to get over that whole 'Son of Howard' thing." Tony lets go of the counter he had been leaning against and starts to make his way up the stairs.

"_A touchy subject, I take it?" _He sounds amused, damn him.

Shrugging, he opens his liquor cabinet. "The old man's dead. No reason to invoke his name."

Loki hums thoughtfully, his voice marginally less scratchy. It no longer sounds like he's been having a screaming match with a banshee for five hours straight.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have alcohol to consume." _And a blond-haired God of Thunder to talk to,_ he silently adds, but he keeps that part to himself. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Loki probably would not take too kindly to any mentions of Thor.

He is answered by silence, and he grunts slightly. Seems like Loki had let go of his conscious end of the connection.

It's like a plug, just hanging out of its outlet. He's vaguely aware of the energy, of the constant hum of Loki and the cold (which he's sure is related to this whole mess, and he forgot to ask about it, dammit), but it's muffled. The alien must be holding some sort of barrier between them, now that he's aware of the connection.

"JARVIS," Iron Man calls, not looking up from pouring himself a glass.

"Yes, sir?" The British voice answers without missing a beat.

"Don't tell anyone about this." He knows that his AI is smart enough to know what he's talking about.

"Yes sir, I'll refrain from letting anyone know that you were talking to yourself." God, he didn't remember putting any sort of sarcasm program into his machines.

"Smartass." He murmured, raising his glass.


End file.
